This invention is directed toward a skateboard truck with a single king-pin assembly mechanism with a compressible single bushing and built-in cam stops, preferably designed for a longboard style of skateboard. The truck allows for superior rotation of the wheels due to the single kingpin assembly, which presents an improvement over the prior king-pin and bolt, as there is less stress on the moving parts, the danger of wheel-bite is reduced, and a tighter steering angle can be maintained. Because it is made from fewer parts, the truck is simpler to construct, take apart and repair, and can be made less expensively than traditional trucks. The truck is also reversible, thereby allowing a user to mount his/her wheels closer to the deck of the skateboard.
The sport of skateboarding began in the 1960's as an offshoot of surfing. Because skateboards can be used anywhere there are hard surfaces, such as streets and sidewalks, and are not limited to coastal areas with decent surf, it has eclipsed the popularity of surfing many times over both in terms of numbers of participants and size of the industry. As would be expected with such a developed sport, skateboards and their components have evolved over the four decades or so since the first person took the wheels off an old pair of roller skates and put them on the underside of a piece of wood.
The modern skateboard comprises several basic components, including a riding surface, or deck, usually made of an elongated piece of wood, fiberglass or some other sturdy, resilient and flexible material, four wheels with some sort of ball bearing arrangement upon which the deck and rider are transported, and two skateboard trucks, where the trucks are the devices by which the wheels are connected to the deck. The trucks are attached to the deck in a mirror image manner, such that as a user leans on one side of the skateboard, the forces cause each truck to simultaneously steer in the opposite direction that the other truck steers. While located in a fairly unobtrusive location on the underside of the deck, the trucks are very important as they determine how the skater controls his/her skateboard by determining how a skateboard's wheels turn. A person doubting the importance of the trucks merely needs to try a quick straight-line trip down a winding hill on a skateboard with trucks which do not allow the skateboard wheels to turn before realizing the folly of such an opinion.
Skateboard trucks are made in a wide variety of styles which rely upon several basic components, within which there can be significant variation. The basic components of the modern skateboard include a base plate or a truck mounting plate, which is a flat piece of metal with at least four holes along its edges, which is used to screw or bolt the truck to the bottom of the deck, a bolt, which attaches the wheel-mounting axle to the base plate, and an upward-projecting, wheel-mounting axle which suspends the skateboard wheels on either side of the kingpin and has a single truck axle or kingpin which sits in a protected cup or pin-receiving hole in the base plate. The turning ability of the skateboard depends on the design and adjustments made to the kingpin, as the wheels of the skateboard traditionally pivot around the kingpin. The bolt is generally threaded through an oversized hole lined with compressible and resilient bushings, often made of plastic components such as urethane, such that by tightening the bolt it becomes more difficult to flex the axle, and therefore more difficult to turn the skateboard (tightening the bolt also generally tends to make the skateboard more stable and less susceptible to “wobble” at high speeds, so there is an inherent trade-off between a user's desire for skateboard maneuverability and stability at high speeds). As the user leans from side to side, the bolt presses against the bushings, enabling turning and at the same time compressing the bushings, such that further leaning becomes more and more difficult for the user. The skateboard user steers the skateboard by leaning from one side to another. thereby applying pressure to the truck, such that the truck pivots around the truck axles whereby on the front wheels, the outer wheel moves forward while the inside wheel moves back, and on the rear wheels, the outer wheel moves back and the inner wheel moves forward, thereby causing the two sets of wheels to no longer be in alignment but rather to describe an arc through which the skateboard will now travel presuming the rider balances successfully on the skateboard.
While modern skateboard trucks perform the basic required operations of attaching the wheels to the deck and allow the user to turn the skateboard by leaning it on one side or another, many of the current trucks have a number of disadvantages including:
1. Existing skateboard trucks limit the turning ability of the skateboards as they allow unacceptably small axle rotation unless the rider loosens the bushings so much that the board develops an undesirable wobble at higher speeds.
2. The poor turning ability causes particular problems when a rider has to perform a tight U-turn, in which case most riders have to dismount their skateboards and pick up the board with their hands to turn it around, or perform a potentially dangerous maneuver, particularly for less-than-expert riders, in which the rider releases or shifts weight from the front axle to the back axle, lifting the front of the board up in the air, and pirouetting around the back axle. While this maneuver can be performed eloquently by skilled riders, a novice rider more often that not will end up with a bruised bottom or worse.
3. Traditional skateboard trucks rely on two points of connection between the base plate and the axle—namely, a kingpin and a bolt. Because of the arrangement of these two members, the force exerted by the bolt or kingpin pivoting around the other puts a potentially damaging amount of stress on, usually, the kingpin. A damaged kingpin can quickly turn a $50 skateboard truck into a piece of scrap good only for salvage value of any unbent bolts, washers, and nuts. A broken kingpin can quickly turn a fun ride into an ambulance trip, or worse.
The current invention can be used on all lengths of skateboards, and is particularly adapted toward the “longboard” skateboards, which are a fairly recent skateboard style. The term “longboard” comes from the surfer's slang term for a surfboard which is generally more than nine feet long, with 50/50 rails, less nose rocker than a standard shortboard, and generally rad cruising abilities. Longboard skateboards are longer than traditional skateboards—usually at least three feet in length. With the added weight and length, longboard skateboards require not only different skills in a rider, but also different equipment to compensate for their unique size and shapes. For example, with a longer deck, the longboard skateboard does not perform optimally when using the same trucks that are used with traditional, twenty-four inch or less, skateboards due to “wheel bind”. Wheel bind occurs in longboard skateboards when the trucks are not designed to allow a user of a longboard skateboard to turn sharply without causing the wheel axles to turn inward to an unacceptably large degree such that the wheels bind and not be smoothly restored to a forward direction. Wheel bind also occurs in shorter skateboards as well, so the invention provides a superior method of turning for all lengths of skateboards.
Thus there has existed a long-felt need for a skateboard truck which avoids the wheel binding problems traditionally encountered with longboards and reduces the physical stress on the truck. While this invention was developed to respond to wheel bind in longboards, it also provides similar advantages when used with traditional skateboards as well.
The current invention provides just such a solution by providing a skateboard truck with a single kingpin assembly mechanism with a compressible single bushing and built-in cam stops. The truck allows for superior rotation of the wheels due to the single kingpin assembly, which presents an improvement over the prior kingpin and bolt, as there is less stress on the moving parts, the danger of wheel-bite is reduced, and a tighter steering angle can be maintained. Because it is made from fewer parts, the truck is simpler to construct, take apart and repair, and can be made less expensively than traditional trucks.